Don’t Tell Mummy: A True Story of the Ultimate Betrayal. Toni Maguire

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СКАЧАТЬ paper I found a round of corned beef sandwiches, then a hard-boiled egg, which I peeled and ate as I stared out the window. A crisp apple followed, while my mother poured herself tea from a flask. There was a separate packet containing scraps for Judy, a bottle of water and a small plastic bowl. She ate every crumb, licked my fingers gratefully, and then fell asleep curled at my feet. After we’d finished my mother took a damp cloth from another small bag, wiped my face and hands before taking out a gilt powder compact and swiftly puffing powder onto her nose and chin. Pursing her lips, she painted them the dark red she always favoured.

      Crewe station seemed a vast, noisy cavern of a place, dirty and poorly lit, completely unlike the pretty freshly painted stations of Kent. My mother bundled me up in my wool coat, placed Judy’s lead in my hand, then organized our bags.

      The boat train from Crewe to Liverpool was packed with happy passengers in a holiday mood, many of them servicemen going home on leave. There was no shortage of helping hands to lift our bags onto the rack above our heads. Judy received many pats and compliments, which pleased me. My pretty mother, with her shoulder-length dark hair and trim figure, had to explain to more than one hopeful serviceman that her husband was waiting for us both in Belfast.

      With my colouring books and crayons out, not wishing to miss a moment, I desperately tried to keep my eyes open, but to no avail. Within an hour sleep overcame me.

      When I awoke we had arrived at Liverpool. Through the swirls of steam I saw the boat for the first time, a huge grey forbidding mass that towered above our heads. It cast a shadow over the scores of people who, carrying an assortment of luggage, were rushing to queue at the base of the gangplank. The weak yellow beams of the streetlights shone dimly on the oily water beneath the gently swaying boat. Having only ever seen the small fishing fleets of Ramsgate, I felt overawed that we were going to travel on something so huge. Holding Judy’s lead tightly I moved closer to my mother for comfort as we shuffled forward to join the queue.

      Helping hands assisted us aboard where a white-coated steward showed us to our small second-class cabin, furnished with a wooden chair, a single bunk and a small sink.

      ‘What, two of us are going to sleep in there?’ I exclaimed in disbelief.

      The steward ruffled my hair and laughed. ‘Sure, you’re not very big!’

      That night I cuddled up to my mother as the swell of the sea rocked me to sleep for most of the twelve-hour crossing. I never had the feeling of seasickness that, according to the purser when he brought us our morning tea and toast, so many of our fellow passengers had.

      We arrived in Belfast before the sun had fully risen, and queued once more to alight. Passengers were waving as they leant over the side but, being too small, I had to contain my eagerness. As the boat made its final lurch the gangplank was lowered and my first sight of Belfast came into view.

      The dawn light shone on damp cobbles, where small ponies pulled wooden traps back and forth. People with freezing breath milled around the gangplank, broad smiles of greeting on their faces. My ears were assailed by the harsh Northern Irish accent as relatives and friends found one another.

      Everything looked and sounded so different as we searched for my father. We saw him simultaneously, coming towards us with a huge smile. He hugged my mother tightly as he kissed her, picked me up, swung me into his arms and kissed me loudly on each cheek. Judy sniffed around his feet suspiciously, and for once her tail didn’t wag.

      He said how much he’d missed us, how pleased he was we were there and how everyone was looking forward to seeing us. Picking up our suitcases, he led the way to a car.

      He’d borrowed it, he told us with a wink, for the last stage of our journey. My mother glowed with delight when she heard how he didn’t want her to travel to Coleraine by train, wasting precious moments when he could be with us.

      With me wrapped up warmly in a tartan rug on the back seat we started the final lap. He held her hand and I heard him say, ‘Everything’s going to be different, you’ll see, we’re going to be happy here. It’ll be good for Antoinette too, all the country air.’ My mother leant her dark head against his shoulder and he rested his auburn one briefly against it. That day their happiness was tangible. Young as I was, I could feel it.

      For the first time I felt excluded. My father kept his attention focused on my mother. I saw her smiles, which today were not for me, and knew they were absorbed in one another. A feeling of apprehension, as if I’d been given a warning of changes to come, settled on me as I watched the unfolding landscape.

      I saw the indigo Irish mountains, their peaks still shrouded in early morning mist. Across a rugged landscape squat, grey square houses, so unlike the pretty black and white thatched cottages of Kent, broke up the acres of green. I spotted clusters of sheep huddled together for warmth in fields separated by low flint walls. We passed tiny hamlets where one small house, turned into a general shop, serviced the local community. Pigs with scrawny chickens pecking round their feet snuffled contently in the muddy yards of single-storey smallholdings. Children waved at our passing car and, waving back, I held Judy up to the window to see them.

      Deciding I liked the look of Ireland, my thoughts turned to my Irish family. Although I loved the maternal grandmother we’d left behind in England, I was looking forward to meeting new relatives. My mother had tried to describe my family to me but I couldn’t visualize them. They, I knew, had seen me as a baby, but I had no recollection of them.

      The fields were replaced by wide roads with large houses standing in landscaped grounds, which gave way to roads of compact bow-windowed semi-detached homes with their oblong gardens boxed in by neatly clipped hedges. Following them came rows of terraced houses with their flowerless shrubs protected by low walls.

      My father told us that we would soon be at his mother’s house where lunch would be waiting for us, which reminded me I was hungry. The breakfast of weak tea and toast had been hours before.

      A few minutes later all greenery vanished as the streets grew narrower and the houses darker, until we turned into a road of tiny red-brick houses, their front doors opening straight onto the pavements. This, my father told me, was the area where he’d grown up, and where members of my Irish family, including my grandparents, lived. I craned my neck and saw a street completely unlike anything I’d seen before.

      Women with headscarves tied over their curlers lent over the tops of their stable front doors, calling across to their neighbours while they watched snotty-nosed toddlers playing in the gutters. Others, bare-legged, feet pushed into carpet slippers, leant against walls inhaling cigarettes through pale lips. Children in ragged clothes played cricket against wickets drawn on walls. Dogs of questionable parentage barked furiously, leaping in the air as they tried to catch balls. Men with braces over their collarless shirts walked aimlessly with their hands in their pockets and caps on their heads, while a few of them standing in a group were having what looked like an intense conversation.

      More dogs ran around the car as we parked and climbed wearily out. Not knowing if they were friendly or not I clutched Judy protectively in my arms. She repaid my concern by wagging her tail and wriggling to get down. Waiting to greet us was a short, plump white-haired woman who stood with her hands on her hips and a wide smile on her face.

      She seized my father in a fierce hug and then pushed open the door. We stepped past the steep uncarpeted staircase, straight from the pavement into the minute sitting-room of my grandparents’ house.

      The room was hot with a coal fire blazing brightly and crowded with the immediate members of my father’s family. My grandfather looked like a smaller, older version of him. He was a short, stocky man who, like my father, had thick wavy hair swept back from СКАЧАТЬ